How sport psychology helps C-suite women perform their best
Many people believe sport psychology is only for elite athletes. The truth is, we are all performers. We all perform in something everyday, whether it’s sport, work, tests, parenting, presentations, or leadership. All of these areas require a certain mindset and deliberate behaviors to excel.
Sport psychology can be particularly powerful for C-suite women. As a female executive navigating quarterly planning, budget decisions, board meetings, client pitches, and high-visibility strategy, you need tools that match the demand. Sport psychology can offer a useful lens to help you with thoughts, habits, and stress responses that impact how you lead and show up at work, especially under pressure. Here are three meaningful shifts that C-suite women can incorporate into their work to facilitate more sustainable performance.
Shift 1: Recognize when pressure starts running the show
One of the first skills I teach clients in therapy is mindfulness. Mindfulness allows us to identify and understand thoughts, feelings, and other internal experiences. For many C-suite women, it’s easy for burnout to sneak up on you without you realizing it. That’s why an awareness of what’s happening inside our bodies and minds is so important!
For many clients, the pressure itself isn’t the problem. Many leaders enjoy challenge, responsibility, and meaningful goals. The problem is how we relate to that pressure – if we view stress as a challenge or opportunity instead of a threat.
Here are some signs that you might be operating in fear of failure (avoidance strategy), rather than a drive towards success (approach strategy):
- Over-functioning: You feel like you have to be the one to do it all. You feel like no one else can do your job the way you can. You avoid taking vacation or rest days, even when you’re sick or exhausted. You check email constantly. You have trouble delegating, and often jump in to solve challenges before your team has a chance to.
- Unforgiving inner critic: Nothing ever feels good enough. You reach towards a goal for months, and then after achieving it feels “meh.” After you finish a task or big project, you go right into the next one without acknowledging your effort. When others give you compliments, you brush them off.
- Rigid perfectionism: You have perfectionistic behaviors that are hard to turn off. You have high expectations for yourself and others, that don’t adjust based on changing circumstances. You prepare way more than a meeting requires to avoid being caught off guard. You find yourself replaying conversations and pitches over and over to “check” that you did a good job. You agonize over decisions, exhausting all the pros/cons to make sure it’s the “right” one.
The first step towards making a change is recognizing what is actually happening. If you see yourself in these signs, it might be time to consider how you are relating to the pressure of work and if sport psychology could be beneficial. Sport psychology can be a helpful resource to support values-consistent behaviors, sustainable leadership, and overall well-being.
Shift 2: Direct your attention with intention
One of the ways pressure can sneak up on us is by grabbing our attentional resources. It’s easy to get sucked into the next fire that needs to be put out, or worrying about all possible negative outcomes, rather than being intentional about where you are spending your time and energy.
C-suite women have many competing attentional demands, at work and at home. In therapy, we use mindfulness and attentional control skills to help direct your focus where you want it to be. During a difficult meeting, that may mean coming back to the decision in front of you rather than trying to read every mind in the room or predict every possible outcome.
When your mind starts racing ahead, it can help to have a simple way to refocus before a major presentation, negotiation, or difficult conversation. You might try:
- Set one clear intention: Define your primary focus for the interaction before stepping into the room. Focus on short cue words that you can remember.
- Extend your exhalations: Slow your breathing prior to the pressure situation. Lengthening your exhale helps your nervous system calm down from fight-or-flight mode.
- Control what’s controllable: Identify and commit to a single action that’s entirely within your control. Try to avoid taking responsibility for outcomes outside of your control.
The goal isn’t to eliminate nerves or self-doubt before you lead. The goal is to notice those feelings without letting them pull you away from what matters in the moment. With practice, you can get better at returning to the conversation, decision, or task in front of you. That doesn’t mean never feeling distracted or uncertain, but facing high-pressure situations with intention, rather than reaction.
Shift 3: Recover more intentionally between high-stakes moments
Many high-achieving women have been conditioned to push through exhaustion in difficult moments. When you’ve been doing that for a long time, slowing down can feel much harder.
Successful people know that recovery time is essential. But knowing this and actually building it in are two different things. However, recovery is not a luxury earned only when the workday ends. It’s an active performance strategy to protect your bandwidth, and an essential performance metric. Framing it in this way can help you step away without guilt, even in busy work seasons.
Here are three practical strategies for C-suite women to recover more intentionally.
- A 3-minute buffer: Schedule a non-negotiable pause between back-to-back calendar holds/meetings to step away from screens. This allows your brain to download all the previous information and reset, before taking in new information.
- Physical de-escalation: After a stressful meeting or mental shift, use a physical reset to signal to your body that you can close the book on the previous task. Dig your feet into the ground, noting the sensations at each touch point of your foot – your heel, your toes, your arch, and the ball of your foot. Take 3 centering breaths, focusing on long-exhales (I like paced breathing, breathing in for a count of 4, and breathing out for a count of 6).
- An anchor for end-of-day: Establish a deliberate end-of-day ritual, like closing all browser tabs, shutting down your laptop, or turning off the light at your desk. Take a moment to then visualize yourself putting the day aside. Visualize putting your worries or tasks in a box that will be there for you tomorrow.
It’s easy to get stuck in all-or-nothing thinking, believing that recovery is only impactful if it’s “big” (think full-day retreats, a spa day, or an extended vacation). Those things can all be beneficial, but remember that small recovery shifts can be more impactful than you think.
Build a more sustainable version of high performance
C-suite women are often expected to be the calmest person in the room while carrying an enormous amount of responsibility. You don’t need to become tougher or more productive. Sustainable performance means understanding how pressure affects you and finding ways to keep showing up in a way that feels aligned with your values.
Highly capable women absolutely benefit from a space where they don’t have to be “on,” but can just be themselves in a highly supportive environment. Individual therapy provides a highly confidential space where the expectation to perform is completely removed. Therapy can help you make room for your goals and for yourself. It can help to look honestly at what’s working, what feels exhausting, and what needs to shift, all while having someone in your corner to help encourage you.
Lead With More Clarity Under Pressure
At Bloom Psychology Group, we help high-performing women build practical skills for staying focused, grounded, and effective when the stakes are high. Our mental performance intensives in Apex, NC offer individualized support for executives who want their performance to feel more sustainable. We also offer individual therapy for women ready to work on anxiety, perfectionism, body image, and relationships. If you’re ready to talk about what support could look like, contact us to get started.